This DOT is great with putting in infrastructure but really not good with design. That DOT design for the Williamsburg Bridge is terrible. A small hole in the wall, of one bicycle width, to enter/exit from the south or west? Really! Not to mention that westbound car traffic backs up and will block the small area where cyclists are going to be forced to exit to the north. Also, the ped/bike segregation or interaction at the entrance is unclear.

The plan does nothing to limit the number of bicycles on Delancey Street. Cyclists will ride on it regardless because it is the fastest and most direct route. On other dangerous streets, the DOT has accepted that bicycles will continue to ride convenient routes (ie. 29th street in Chelsea) so they are putting cycling infrastructure in to mitigate the harm to the extent possible. Why not here?

And, when was the community board presentation for this plan? Where is the public input and commentary? How did this just get to be the decided plan that will be installed in 5 months?

Anonymous

I’m with you M to the i.

The redesign is awful. I regularly cross Delancey at Clinton Street heading North. Because of all the barriers, you have a narrow space to ride up on to the median area. Frequently, because of volume, that narrow space is congested. Meaning, I’ll be stuck on East Bound Delancey, waiting for people to clear up, meanwhile, the light will change to red and I’ll have a row of angry cars/trucks ready to run me over.

And agreed on the backups on the north side. Cars stop wherever the f they want at that red light. They’ll frequently stop in the middle of the cross-walk, and then when they realize they’re in the way, move up a little or feign moving.

This re-design will make the area less safe. It will lead to more injuries. True, people fly down the WillyB. So give them tickets if they’re riding recklessly!!! Don’t encase people by big concrete walls. I bet money someone cracks there head on one of those within the first 6 months.

Anonymous

I’m with you M to the i.

The redesign is awful. I regularly cross Delancey at Clinton Street heading North. Because of all the barriers, you have a narrow space to ride up on to the median area. Frequently, because of volume, that narrow space is congested. Meaning, I’ll be stuck on East Bound Delancey, waiting for people to clear up, meanwhile, the light will change to red and I’ll have a row of angry cars/trucks ready to run me over.

And agreed on the backups on the north side. Cars stop wherever the f they want at that red light. They’ll frequently stop in the middle of the cross-walk, and then when they realize they’re in the way, move up a little or feign moving.

This re-design will make the area less safe. It will lead to more injuries. True, people fly down the WillyB. So give them tickets if they’re riding recklessly!!! Don’t encase people by big concrete walls. I bet money someone cracks there head on one of those within the first 6 months.

Mike

The Delancey project is clearly just more of the same security-theater crap that installed bollards and concrete at the entrances to the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges already.

Why they feel the need to physically exclude possibly terroristic vehicles from bike/ped paths (in the process making it harder for bikes/peds to access them), when said terroristic vehicles could just drive in the car lanes, has never been clear.

MRB

Has a predicted “doomsday scenario” in any situation ever arisen?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7995989@N03/ J

Delancey needs a cycle track. There is no other way to put it. People will continue to bike and be killed on Delancey until it is actually made safe. Ignoring the problem and hoping that people will bike out of their way on a slow, meandering route is just wishful thinking. Yes, it will probably be a difficult fight, but this is the busiest biking bridge in the entire city and lives are at stake.
In my opinion, the best solution is to build an Allen St style cycle track in the middle of Delancey against the median. Maybe you could get the space by banning parking on Delancey during peak hours when all 4 lanes are needed. Maybe you could reduce the number of lanes on both the bridge and on Delancey to 3 lanes in each direction. The inner roadways are so small and walled in that they function as 3 lanes (see street view below). http://bit.ly/oKE5LMThere is precedent for reducing road capacity on a tunnel in the name of safety. DOT did just that when it converted the Park Avenue tunnel to one-way.http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/parkavetunnel.pdf
We need creative, effective solutions to solve this dangerous location. What DOT is currently proposing is neither.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7995989@N03/ J

Delancey needs a cycle track. There is no other way to put it. People will continue to bike and be killed on Delancey until it is actually made safe. Ignoring the problem and hoping that people will bike out of their way on a slow, meandering route is just wishful thinking. Yes, it will probably be a difficult fight, but this is the busiest biking bridge in the entire city and lives are at stake.
In my opinion, the best solution is to build an Allen St style cycle track in the middle of Delancey against the median. Maybe you could get the space by banning parking on Delancey during peak hours when all 4 lanes are needed. Maybe you could reduce the number of lanes on both the bridge and on Delancey to 3 lanes in each direction. The inner roadways are so small and walled in that they function as 3 lanes (see street view below). http://bit.ly/oKE5LMThere is precedent for reducing road capacity on a tunnel in the name of safety. DOT did just that when it converted the Park Avenue tunnel to one-way.http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/parkavetunnel.pdf
We need creative, effective solutions to solve this dangerous location. What DOT is currently proposing is neither.

Kaja

Hypothetically, what are the obstacles to a centrally reserved two-way cycle track down the middle of Delancey all the way to Kenmare?

Lose a lane of traffic on either side; enormous construction project; funds; but other than that?

Kaja

Hypothetically, what are the obstacles to a centrally reserved two-way cycle track down the middle of Delancey all the way to Kenmare?

Lose a lane of traffic on either side; enormous construction project; funds; but other than that?

Anonymous

@9110d63ee297afbe3f3467774f756da5:disqus

Delancey is one of the streets where I’m inclined to believe that their isn’t much room for eliminating lanes of traffic or parking

There have to be some Truck/High Volume routes into the city and Delancey is one of them. And Delancey isn’t one of those streets that has excess capacity either.

I’m no fan of parking but, I don’t see them eliminating the parking lane on the north side of delancey that serve the businesses there. There are legitimate needs for deliveries. I believe currently you can only park there during non-rush hours anyway.

All that being said, I don’t see why they can’t just extend the existing median all the way to Kenmare, make it two-way cycle track, with ingress/egresses at Essex/Allen/Christie. The median is a little narrow but it’d only need be expanded by a few feet. Couldn’t they tweak the lanes and make them a little smaller? Or all the lanes at their safe minimum width?

I get the sense that DOT is smart enough to build the western wall of their Delancey redesign as one that can be easily removed in the future, so that in five to ten years, future administrations will be able to extend it further westward.

William S. Burger

Except that future administrations will be no where near as friendly to cycling infrastructure as this one is, even as cities like Chicago and Boston outpace NYC in innovative transportation policies and design. DOT needs to put in changes to Delancey now, save some lives, and almost challenge some future mayor to make the street dangerous again.